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Month: November 2017

I thought I was excited enough when the lovely folk at Avon told me to expect The Little Village Christmas to reach #7 in the Sunday Times Fiction Paperbacks chart today. Then I bought the paper this morning – and found it at #6!

I officially became a Sunday Times bestselling author last week when The Little Village Christmas popped up at #17 but to reach the top ten makes me feel more relaxed about claiming the title ‘Sunday Times bestselling author’. It’s something I’ve coveted for so long without ever really expecting it to apply to me.

After all, it’s been a while coming. Over more than 21 years 150+ of my short stories have been published, along with 250+ columns or articles, three courses, six serials, a writing guide, and a novella. I’ve judged 120+ writing competitions, appraised dozens of manuscripts and led a host of writing courses and workshops. And The Little Village Christmas is my twelfth novel.

So, when I treated myself to these frivolous but beautiful boots yesterday I was celebrating every one of those steps along the road to seeing my name and the title of my book in the Sunday Times today.

My thanks go to every editor who has chosen my work over the years, the whole wonderful Avon team, my amazing agent Juliet Pickering, the writer of every good review and each member of my fantastic street team.

Most of all, thanks to my lovely readers, who made this joyous celebration possible by buying my books. Thank you.

When I signed a four-book contract with Accent Press a few years ago, my life suddenly went into overdrive. They took over two novels, published a third within a few weeks, and the fourth the following year. The fifth and sixth followed about a year after that, along with a summer novella.

There have been ups and downs: holding each book in my hand has been a genuine thrill, seeing them on sale in shops even more gratifying. There have been rights deals too … but looking at their trajectory, I felt there had been some missed opportunities. The earlier novels, in particular, were rather neglected, and overall, I felt my ‘brand’ was underdeveloped.

Thankfully, Accent agreed, and after discussion, my entire oeuvre (gosh, that does sound grand!) is being rejacketed.

I’m thrilled with what they’ve come up with – and I’d love your feedback too. Over the next little while, I’d like to reintroduce you to them, starting with the very first one, Face the Wind and Fly, which deals with love, loss and family life against the background of a controversial project that fractures the local community.

After fifteen years of happy marriage, wind farm engineer Kate Courtenay discovers that her charismatic novelist husband is spending more and more of his time with a young fan. She throws herself into her work, a contentious wind farm that’s stirring up tempers in the local community. Sparks fly when she goes head to head against its most outspoken opponent, local gardener Ibsen Brown – a man with a past of his own. But a scheme for a community garden brings the sparring partners together, producing the sort of electricity that threatens to short circuit the whole system.

I think this fabulous image captures the spirit of the novel completely, and I do hope you like it!

OK, you got me. Sometimes, as for Christmas books, I get two publication days! Today is when the rather fetching sparkly paperback of The Little Village Christmas hits the shelves even though I was all excited about the ebook four weeks ago.

It’s still exciting that from today readers can buy the printed version for their bookshelves or as Christmas presents – or put it on their own Christmas wishlist, of course!

I’ll be celebrating by joining Bernie Keith on BBC Radio Northampton about 10.30 a.m. and maybeeeeee with a couple of glasses of wine tonight. Or three. It’s a joy to celebrate the culmination of all those months of work to bring you a new book. As part of the general jollity, watch out for my newsletter and on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for competitions to win one of these pretty prizes that I had made for me by crafter Pebbles by Jenn. They all have to go! Although I’m so in love with them … No! They DO have to go! Try and win one.